Macworld Expo San Francisco 2009

I made my annual pilgrimage to the Macworld Expo San Francisco for the last two days. I have been attending this event for the last 15 years or so without missing a year. I am a Machead and proud of it. Here, I meet some old friends once a year and try to find a good deals on Mac items.

This year, all that changed. Apple announced that this year’s keynote will not be given by Steve Jobs but Phil Schiller, Senior Vice President of Worldwide Product Marketing. Second, and most importantly, Apple will not be taking part of Macworld expo starting next year.

Of course, Macworld expo is not being run by Apple, it’s run by IDG, who owns Macworld magazine. However, I found it strange that they won’t attend the expo specifically for them, specially with a rumor that Apple will attend CES in Las Vegas instead, which runs at the same time next year. While I can understand Apple’s point of view, I will sorely miss them from the show next year. I hope the show will continue beyond 2010 but that is not known at this time.

As for the show, I was a bit disappointed. Some of the vendors I expected to be there did not show. The show is where you get some questions answered by the vendors and I had two vendors that I wanted to talk to did not show, Epson and Pantone. I brought my camera to the show and was able to take some pictures, below, but my lens stopped working during the show. Luckily, I was able to talk to someone at Nikon and got the information to send it in for repair. While I was there, I saw a lens I really wanted, newest 50 mm, f/1.8 lens, which was selling a few doors down for $399 as a show special. I just couldn’t justify the purchase, maybe next time.

Some of the interesting items I saw are below.

Playing a bit of drums at the show

Russel Brown, whom I consider the father of Photoshop

Biometrics access device using fingerprint

Interesting iPod speakers

Wireless speaker set

XRL to USB mic converter from Shure. This seems to be big this year

Replica of the DeLorean from Back to the Future movies

Guy Kawasaki signing his new book